'Straightforward' plan would measure schools

The state of Tennessee wants to scrap complicated means of measuring school progress for a straightforward plan that lays out how much progress schools must make each year while also whittling away at the achievement gap between rich and poor students.

In its request Monday for a waiver from the controversial No Child Left Behind law, the state Department of Education says it's reasonable to expect gains of 3 to 5 percent per year in the number of students proficient in math and reading.

Under the current Adequate Yearly Progress measure outlined in the federal law, schools are expected to show 20 percent gains per year. The expectation is pushing hundreds of schools into the failing category.

About half of the schools in the state failed to show enough progress this year, including those in both Shelby County Schools and Memphis City Schools.

"Unfortunately, the rising rates of proficiency required to achieve AYP make no sense," state Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman said Monday.

About a dozen other states have indicated they also intended to file.

If the waiver is approved, schools will be expected to reduce the achievement gap by 6 percentage points per year.

"I like the straightforwardness," said MCS Supt. Kriner Cash. "In schools, people like to know what it is we have to do. They want to get the whole team in the school, in the region, get them all rolling in the same direction.

"The challenge is it's not static. You can't rest on your laurels. No one should be comfortable in Tennessee right now.

"To close the gap is a challenge that means white students have to continue to achieve. We don't want to close the gap by having one stand still and having the other rise. Every student has to continue to grow and get stronger. The subgroups that need to climb the highest have to go faster."

Instead of spreading federal grants across all schools, Tennessee would funnel about $40 million in grants to the 85 lowest performing schools; 68 of them are in Memphis. Much of the money would be awarded in competitive grants designed to reward the most innovative ideas.

Another $10 million will go to schools that have high achievement gaps.

Huffman expects an answer from Washington about the waiver before the end of the year. If the waiver is granted, the new system of measuring school success will go into effect immediately in Tennessee, wiping out the AYP measure.

Under current law, 100 percent of all the nation's children are expected to be proficient in reading and math by 2014.

The system also sets up a cumbersome matrix for state intervention. For every year a school misses the pass mark, the state becomes more involved in running the school. But it is possible that a school can make progress in an area it had missed -- math scores among Hispanic third-graders, for instance -- and fail in another area, plunging it into a murky quasi-progress.

It is also possible that a school could score well enough to be proficient but have a broad achievement gap between racial or economic groups.

Under the waiver system, that would no longer be possible because schools would be divided into three categories based on their test scores and graduation rates but in some nontraditional areas as well, including how much progress students are making.

That puts schools like Booker T. Washington High, long on the state's priority list, at the top of pack, joining the ranks with Robert R. Church Elementary and a handful of high-ranking charter schools in the city.

Conversely, Memphis schools such as White Station High and Peabody and Idlewild elementary schools would rank low due to the large size of their achievement gaps between students.

"You can't ride the coattails of high-achieving students," Cash said. "You won't be a great school until all children in all subgroups are achieving at high levels."

While the U.S. Department of Education created the categories, it's up the states to suggest funding and strategies for improving.

"We tried to use flexibility to come up with interventions we thought would be best," Huffman said.

The impetus for planning them will rest with each district.

"We want to identify the schools that really are performing at the lowest level and get resources there," he said.